Gerald Seymour - Beyond Recall

“You talk rubbish. You talk vodka shit.”

But Timofey’s father persisted. “Not too pissed to realise this is danger. Too great a danger. I say ignore it.”

And Natacha laughed and pirouetted. “It would be fun and entertainment, and if it hurt them then it would be pleasure.”

His father could barely stand and would have known that if he slumped back on to the couch he would lose the argument. “You know nothing. What is asked of you, you don’t know. You get involved and where does it end? You would be fools, and it involves me.”

From Timofey: “And we get paid. We get money, more money than we have, and with money we can be somebody.”

From Natacha: “Hurt them, damage them, make them squeal. Those weeks in the cell, with those women, all we talk about is hurting them, but don’t know how… This is how.”

Like kids around a clown they circled him and confused him and he found it difficult to follow what they said and his eyes had glazed, and the effort to be coherent was supreme. “It would be treason. You know that word, treason . Know what they do to a traitor? They beat, they torture, they make a man scream to die, and keep him alive, and beat him some more, and if he lives he goes to the camps. How long survive there? My age, what of me? In a camp, a labour camp, a strict regime camp, every day worse, then praying to die. For what?”

“For what? To have money. Money is a reason. It is not political, it is for money.”

“Maybe go stand in Lenin Prospekt after it is finished and watch big men, fat cats, come in their chauffeur cars, see others chucked away and disgraced. Maybe watch it.”

His father cried, tears running on his cheeks, and he was turning and reaching out for something to grip, “You should not do it, must refuse and…”

He fell, or might have been pushed. His feet tangled. He was spread-eagled on the couch. Timofey and Natacha ignored him and the argument was over. His father whimpered, and might have wet himself, but neither his son nor his son’s girl noticed him anymore, did not even seem to smell him… They left him on the couch. The apartment was in his name. He was the rightful tenant, but he was expelled from the bedroom which they now used. He had to sleep in the living area and they might be watching TV or might be cooking and drinking and might be playing music loud, and he was no longer allowed access to his own room. The father of Timofey had only the bottle for solace and had only the money that they gave him after they had been out to sell weed or ’phets. If the FSB investigators came for him and locked him away then he would not even have the bottle. They were back in the bedroom.

He cried out, “It would be a conspiracy that betrays the state. You would be idiots…”

Beyond the door, still ajar, he was answered only by the grinding of the bed springs.

“So, Arthur, where are the miscreants of the Table taking us?”

Arthur Jennings answered the questions posed by Richard Carter, Director-General, God Almighty. “It’s about a village in central Syria, Dickie. Has a strategic position, excellent for monitoring traffic down a main highway. Can get better results with ground-based cameras, local input or covert use of recce troops than from drones and satellite facilities. When the war was still being fought there we identified its importance. Took action – you’ll know what I mean if I say Knacker was involved.”

A dry smile, equivalent of a Martini barely stirred. “I would.”

“Special Forces called regularly there, we had the villagers on board and…”

Gaz watched her walk towards the building. He had been kicking his heel at Kirkwall, principal town and principal airport of the Orkneys, for near to two hours. Knacker was long gone in the Cessna – and he’d seen it take off and head south towards mainland Scotland. Would he see Knacker again during the mission?

“Of course, but when we’re farther down the road, I’ll see you then – just have, for now, a few loose ends to tie up. It’ll be good, plain sailing, and you’ll be well looked after by the lady. She’s Fee, that’s what she answers to. My name for her, and with a slight adaptation of the old rhyme: Fee, fie, foe, fum, I smell the blood of a British man,/ Be he alive or be he dead,/ I’ll grind his bones to make my bread. Probably substitute Russian for British and you’ll get the drift. Quite passionate and very focused, and I rate her. She was a clerk at Ballykinlar in the Province and years after I’d transferred to the Service in London, and she lapped up all those silly stories about me, decided she wanted to join me. Took leave, this is fifteen years ago, followed me out of the Vauxhall building, accosted me in the street. What do I do? Well, for a start I gave her a photo of a section head and asked her to find me his address. Two mornings later I am crossing the road from the station and she’s close to running me down on a bicycle and she palms me Danny Williams’ home address in Wimbledon, SW19. Not bad, and I took her on, and fought through the appointment boards. Couldn’t be better… Not everyone’s cup of tea, but mine. My workload goes well with her, and she was at the FOB with me in that unpleasant bit of Syria, knows her Russians and their security apparatus and their strong points, and their weaknesses. Don’t worry, Gaz, she’ll look after you. See you when I see you.”

She came around a corner and had a guardsman’s stride and her skirt was rucked up above her knees to accommodate it. Cropped hair and no make-up. She opened the door, came in thrust out an arm.

“I’m Fee, and you’re Gaz. Good man, glad you’re on board.”

She shook his hand, a bone crusher.

He said, “I did not know what other options were around.”

“None – except that you could have stayed curled up in a corner, no hope and no chance and no future, and not wanted. Hardly an option. At least, now, you’re wanted.”

She lit a cigarette. Puffed, exhaled and the cloud near obliterated the No Smoking order on the wall. She took a laptop from her shoulder-bag. No jewellery but a tattoo high on her left arm, almost at the shoulder and it showed a small heart, size of a fifty-pence piece, an arrow stabbing through it. She hardly seemed of romantic inclination, and he wondered what was the shape, size, species, of her lover. She had the laptop powered and flicked keys and he recognised the attachment providing the necessary security, and plugged in a cable with an earphone link and handed the earphones to Gaz. He watched the screen: saw a harbour filled with yachts, and launches roped to marina piers, and a narrow set of steps leading up from the sea; then a cobbled street and cheerful window-boxes of flowers lightened the screen, and a building that had been recently pointed between traditional stonework; and saw the name of the bank, and a commentary gave its Channel Islands location, and its name, and a printout was displayed and a deposit had been paid into an account for Gary Baldwin, aged 29, d.o.b. 1991, and a passport number, and also displayed was his signature. He was credited with £10,000. The account number filled the screen for five seconds then disappeared but he had memorised it, and she switched off the laptop, and took out her earphones.

“Don’t get on a high horse. It is not disrespectful, nor does it tie you in. It’s a simple contract and you do a job and are rewarded for it. Not an insult and we are not concerned with maudlin patriotism, but of gaining strategic advantage. And if it doesn’t work out there’s enough to pay for a quite respectable funeral.”

And she smiled grimly, and he laughed, and could not remember when last he had, laughed as he had on that morning before he, and Arnie and Sam, had taken the lift into the storm and towards the village… But he reckoned she rarely joked, might have meant it.